For the past couple of decades, the amount of electronic communication has grown exponentially every year. Information content associated with the Internet, or websites, now number in the millions and, as the Internet has become increasingly accessible to millions of people, the number of email messages exchanged has also increased. Websites and email are now a common medium for the communication of both personal and business information.
People who market products or services over electronic communication channels often desire to include graphics into their presentations. Although graphics are very effective at capturing the attention of the person receiving the communication, they also require large files that must be stored and transmitted. Over a slow connection, a large file typically takes a proportionally longer time to transmit than a small file. If the transmission time is too long the person receiving the transmission may choose to abort the message.
Currently, there are several techniques for avoiding long transmission times associated with the sending of graphic information. One technique is to send static pictures, i.e. pictures that do not change. However, multiple images composed into “movies” or “animations” are better at attracting a recipient's attention. Of course, multiple images take considerably longer to transmit than a single image.
Movies are typically transmitted as a series of frames, with each frame a picture of the entire shot at successive intervals of time. Of course, each picture in a succession of shots takes time to download. Another technique for generating movies in electronic communication is the use of flash graphics, or flash. Flash images include an image file and programming code to animate the file. In other words, rather than sending multiple images to achieve a movie affect, flash transmits one image and computer instructions on how to manipulate the image. The computer that receives the flash content then displays the image and executes the instructions to display a dynamic image. Although, this technique saves transmission bandwidth, the programming of the instructions is difficult and the results are limited to that which can be expressed in the transmitted code. In addition, the receiving computer must include a specific program, or plug-in, for executing the flash code.
Increasingly, electronic communication is performed over wireless communication channels. On wireless communication channels, the amount of information able to be transmitted in a short period of time is even more limited than on wired connections.
What is needed is an efficient technique for transmitting dynamic images over wireless, and wired, connections using a minimum of bandwidth. In other words, a new technique should be able to transmit dynamic images in small files such as email messages so that download times are minimized. What is also needed is a technique for electronically transmitting dynamic images, which is simpler in construction, more universally usable and more versatile than current techniques.